Parking
by Tiamat's Child
Summary: Raoul has a difficult day. Tracks is not necessarily helpful. Raoul/Tracks


**Title:** Parking  
**Author:** Tiamat's Child  
**Rating:** PG  
**Warnings:** …Interspecies um. Attractions.  
**Word count:** 1,166  
**Summary:** Raoul has a difficult day. Tracks is not necessarily helpful.  
**A/N:** Written for the springkink livejournal community, for the prompt 'Tracks/Raoul: manual stimulation of Tracks's interior - "And I thought that was just an odd accessory."'

**Parking**

"Raoul," Tracks said, in his most annoying I Am A Responsible Adult, I will Look After You voice, "That's a very sensitive area and I doubt you mean that the way I'm experiencing it."

Raoul went still, his hand light on the edge of the driver's column. "Do you have to tell me that in that tone?" he asked, irritation, as usual, winning out over the other, chillier emotions Tracks comment had woken up.

"What tone?" Tracks snapped, "I'm telling you so you'll know, since I'm quite sure you wouldn't like me not to tell you."

Raoul flung himself back into Tracks' seat, crossing his arms and slumping down into an excellent sulk. Tracks' steering column was just barely warm, and he could still feel it's slightly pebbled texture against the pads of his fingers. "If you don't want me touching you, you could just say so!"

Tracks gunned his engine, just long enough to earn them a few looks and answering honks from fellow motorists. Tracks ignored them. Raoul spread his empty hands and held them up to a little old lady who was glaring at him particularly fiercely. Not my fault, he mouthed.

"I have no objection to you touching me," Tracks said, "Don't be absurd."

"I'm not!" Raoul said, louder than he'd strictly intended, "You're being a condescending galumph again!"

"There is nothing condescending –" Tracks stopped in mid sentence, and switched lanes abruptly, earning them still more honking.

"This isn't my turn," Raoul pointed out sharply. Tracks hadn't even asked before deciding on a detour.

"No," Tracks agreed, "It's not. But we need to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about," Raoul said angrily, glaring at the doors. Locked, of course, and he knew from experience that when Tracks was on a Protecting the Teenage Human From Himself kick there was no unlocking them. "I over stepped, you were an ass, I won't do it again, you will, case closed, dossier shut, et cetera, et cetera."

Tracks didn't answer. Raoul glared at the dashboard. Typical. Just absolutely typical. He scrunched in on himself further. It wasn't fair. It really wasn't fair, and it only made it worse that he couldn't entirely pin down why it mattered to him at all. It wasn't like he he'd ever expected Tracks to find him attractive, or like he'd meant to get touchy feely in a Times Square kind of way. It shouldn't matter. Sure, the amount of self-disclosure he was pretty sure he'd just engaged in was utterly humiliating, and it ticked Raoul off that he'd gone from telling Abe Nicholson that only a pervert'd see anything wrong in a healthy young man appreciating a healthy engine to –

It looked like Nicholson being right, at least. Even though it wasn't, really. Sure, the first thing he'd noticed about Tracks had been "Corvette!" followed closely by "Engine to die for" but shortly on the heels of both had been, "Person!" which made things different. Anybody with two synapses to rub together could see that, which made it unsurprising that Nicholson couldn't. Nicholson was too dumb to figure out that hassling the pretty math nerd who checked over his papers for him wasn't the best strategy for long term success.

Nicholson was an idiot and Tracks was making decisions that affected him without asking (again) and it did matter. It just did. He didn't want to talk rationally, and Tracks would keep after him until he did, but he didn't want to. Raoul flipped the collar of his jacket up to facilitate the process of disappearing.

Tracks slid smoothly through the traffic in that way he had that managed to look completely polite and un-aggressive while, in fact, being pushy as hell. Typical Tracks. He had to have what he wanted, and make it out that it was all for your own good to boot.

Eventually, Tracks spoke. "I apologize for the confusion I seem to have caused. I was imprecise in my wording."

Raoul rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Were you imprecise in kidnapping me, too?"

"It's not my fault you only stay still long enough to listen on a drive."

Raoul exploded out of his small, scrunched up ball. "No, that is not cool! This is not my fault! You just decided to take off because you could without asking me, without listening to me at all and that is not okay, you got it?"

Tracks didn't say anything for a long moment. Raoul considered drawing his feet up onto Tracks' seat to make his displeasure extra clear, but before he could overcome his instinctive aversion to treating fine upholstery so poorly, Tracks said, "You're right. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well," Raoul said, taken aback. Tracks apologized sometimes, but he almost never actually said 'Sorry'. Raoul was pretty sure that Tracks' apologies were so formal to mask his lack of real remorse. Raoul didn't know what to do with a 'sorry'. Especially one that didn't come with any kind of excuse or explanation.

It did a serious number on the head of steam he'd worked up.

"Shall I let you out?"

Raoul sighed. He couldn't help it. Tracks would let him out, yes. But then he'd follow Raoul back, making him look like he had the world's richest crazy stalker. "No," he said, feeling his amusement at the mental image of Tracks following him home like a puppy cut still further into the rapidly dissipating steam.

"All right," Tracks said, "Raoul – I really don't have an objection to you touching me. I didn't intend to give that impression. But it would have been awfully rude not to mention it."

Raoul snorted. "Rude's a way to put it," he said, and clenched his hands into fists on his thighs so he could stop them shaking without attracting Tracks' attention. "So, uh. You park, huh?"

Tracks laughed that long, low laugh of his that always made Raoul's skin prick up. He shut his eyes. "Yes," Tracks said, "Yes, Raoul, I 'park'."

Raoul grinned. "Hey. Yeah. Great. And we both know I'm irresistible. Know my way around an engine, me."

Tracks huffed. "I've had better mechanics," he said, but he didn't mean it, Raoul could hear how he didn't mean it in his voice.

"Naw," Raoul said, "You've never had a better mechanic than me. I'm the best. Absolute best there is. Who unwrapped you from that telephone pole?"

Tracks groaned. "You let them save you once," he said, "And you never hear the end of it. You pay and pay…"

"'Course," Raoul said, interrupting, "You pulled a bit of a knight made of shining armor yourself, so I guess we're even."

"Yes," Tracks answered, sounding immensely pleased with himself, "I believe very much in reciprocity."

"You could just say 'give and take', like a normal person."

"I'm not a normal person."

"Got that right," Raoul said, and wondered, with a little twist of nervous excitement in his belly, just how long a drive he could talk Tracks into.

Tracks laughed.


End file.
